a inexperienced oasis of banana trees by Menis Arquitectos
Conceived by Menis Arquitectos, a new banana tree yard adorns the El Tanque Cultural Space, a previous oil tank in the Canary Islands. The green oasis recollects the agricultural background of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, exactly where Spain’s first refinery was created. In 1995, the Councillor for Lifestyle and Historical Heritage of Tenerife island’s authorities, Mrs. Dulce Xerach Pérez, promoted the concept of retaining just one of its large containers. The architect Fernando Menis undertook the rehabilitation of El Tanque into a cultural space, which was mentioned as a safeguarded cultural heritage in 2014. This 12 months El Tanque celebrates its 25 yrs of existence with an ecological landscape structure, developed by the exact same architect.
This verdant job presents the Cabo Llanos neighborhood with its to start with eco-friendly public area. The new banana trees back garden, also featuring other Canary species, displays the area agricultural landscape prior to industrialization, building a position the place diverse eras, cultures, and sensibilities that have formed the region’s identification coexist. Meanwhile, the design and style crew made lights and furnishings elements made with squander resources, these types of as outdated diving bottles recycled and modified for new use.
all images by ©Simona Rota, except if mentioned or else
exuberant subtropical vegetation celebrates El Tanque
The architects marked the perimeter of El Tanque with the vivacious subtropical vegetation in an attempt of recalling the agricultural action that once existed in this space. Coinciding its 25th anniversary, the Association Amigos del Tanque promoted the creation of a garden that would occupy its surroundings, recovering each a trace of its industrial earlier as properly as a memory of its agricultural history, which disappeared from the town at the commencing of the 20th century.
Measuring 50 meters in diameter and almost 20 meters high, the El Tanque Cultural House takes condition as a enormous container that served for numerous a long time for the refining and storage of crude oil. Immediately after its renovation into a cultural room, it mostly retained its first exterior and interior overall look, with nominal architectural intervention by recycling and incorporating scrap materials.
‘The new banana garden of the El Tanque Cultural Place, whose designer is Fernando Martín Menis, was born from lots of ideas shared with the Association Amigos del Tanque, of which the architect is a member, and from some integrants of the staff who organizes the KEROXEN festival, but previously mentioned all it is the end result of a continued enjoy for that part of the town of Santa Cruz de Tenerife that a number of citizens have invested decades committed to preserving and defending’, states Dulce Xerach, a lawyer and president of the Association Amigos del Tanque.
the trees allow for residents to delight in a inexperienced surroundings when waiting for the relaxation of the vegetation to mature
Fernando Menis’s landscape design introduces a green oasis with high biodiversity in a neighborhood that entirely lacks community green parts. For this scheme, far more than 700 trees have been planted, which include cypresses, flamboyants, Roystonea Regia palms, Monstera Deliciosa, Ficus Repen, and shrubs, as effectively as areas with fragrant plants. Even so, as a tribute to the previous banana plantations that inhabited the website at the time, the principal tree observed in the region is Musa Paradisiaca. This sort of tree grows speedy and can reach up to 7 meters higher, though it blooms in excess of summer time, and desires solar orientation.
‘Our research do the job has confirmed that this location was agricultural and was whole of banana and tomato farms, as well as coastline vegetation these types of as tabaibas, cardones, verodes, and so on., all of them indigenous plants of the Canary Islands, which call for little watering, are resilient and sturdy. By looking back again into the agricultural history of Santa Cruz, which had disappeared in all its coastal places, the location all over El Tanque has been planted with banana trees of the Musa paradisiaca species, though the tomatoes have simply just appear out, because there have to have been vines above 90 years previous, incredible survivors of an entire industrial period, which, immediately after obtaining prepared the land and with some watering, have developed once again mainly because the earth, the soil, has bought memory, although at times we forget it’, clarifies Fernando Menis.
graphic by ©Hisao Suzuki | banana trees mark the perimeter of the historic wall of the reservoir
Next the exact logic of reuse and recycling, MenisArquitectos designed the lighting and home furniture with squander elements. Hence, divers’ oxygen bottles are converted and modeled into lamps exuding a playful perspective as they resemble the figures from the Minions cartoon. After all, just one of the principal buyers of the backyard is small children. The layout also follows a acutely aware approach in phrases of light air pollution, as perfectly as the watering of the greenery, which is equipped with recycled h2o.
‘In brief, it is an action with a number of implications since we have got now an available plaza, which is also a new inexperienced general public place, a initial one in the Cabo Llanos community, the agricultural background of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is evoked and, at the exact same time, biodiversity is recovered. It is an action that can be an example to ecologically get well other spaces in the city and on the island’, emphasizes Dulce Xerach, a law firm and president of the Association Los Amigos del Tanque.
